Virtual Bookworm vs Breezeway Books

Virtual Bookworm provides full service publishing services at a reasonable price. This comprehensive company excels at providing fast publishing services. On average, Virtual Bookworm can turn around an order in 4 to 6 weeks. This makes Virtual Bookworm one of the fastest services available

Virtual Bookworm has a number of publishing packages they offer to meet individual needs. They provide manuscript formatting, the assignment of a Library of Congress Control number, original cover design, author discounts, web domain registration, web design, the printing of bookmarks and more. They also provide information for authors related to writing and marketing.

As the author, your royalty is set at 50% of the sales price of the book. While Virtual Bookworm has flexible publishing options and quick turnaround they have room for improvement with their ability to sell books. Virtual Bookworm uses the wholesalers Baker & Taylor, Inc. and Ingram Book Group for distribution. Virtual Bookworm does not yet have experience printing thousands of titles.

Customer service and support at Virtual Bookworm is impressive to say the least. The representatives we talked to were well informed and very willing to answer all of our questions. We didn't sit on hold waiting to be served - this company is very responsive and exceeded our expectations.

Overall, we were impressed with the personal responsiveness quick turnaround offered by Virtual Bookworm. They offer a good list of publishing services that will meet the needs of most authors. However, we would have liked a longer track record in selling and marketing books, and a more attractive royalty program.

Based in Florida, Breezeway Books is a smaller self-publishing service. Approximately 2,000 authors have published their books with Breezeway in the past.

How much will it cost to use this service for your book? The website does not make it easy to figure that out. Rather than providing an easy-to-use comparison chart, listing each of their services and packages, you will have to click on each individual item to see the price.

Let's start with editing. Editing services are packaged separately from publishing; Breezeway Books does offer a "free edit assessment" to let you know how much work, if any, your book will need. You can also access services ranging from Critique and Analysis to Heavy Content Editing. If you'd like a "Developmental Edit", which includes the Critique/Analysis, Content Edit, and Copy Edit, you'll pay $0.056 per word in your original manuscript. On the lower end, if all you want is a final proofread, you'll pay $0.01 per word. All of Breezeway's other editing services fall between those two price ranges.

In terms of publishing, this business offers three main packages, available either in Black-and-White or Full Color: eWorldwide, Classic, and Page Turner. Prices range from $599 to $1,599, respectively. Once again, there's no handy chart you can consult to see what is offered in each package and determine which one will best meet your needs.

What about royalties? Breezeway Books doesn't seem to know: on their main page, they proudly proclaim that authors keep all of their royalties, while in the FAQ it explains that they receive 10-30% of the list price, depending on what channel is used to purchase the book (e.g. Amazon vs. the Breezeway site). This is misleading at best.

We also found out that Breezeway Books is owned by Deborah Greenspan, formerly of Llumina Press. According to several customers, Greenspan shut down Llumina and left them hanging without transferring them over to her new services at Breezeway Books. The Llumina Press website is still live, but it looks almost exactly like the site for Breezeway Books.

Whether looking at authors' experiences with Llumina or Breezeway, the results are not good. One author, in particular, described how he or she is dyslexic and was relying heavily on the editing services promised by the publisher to make the book flawless; to his or her dismay, the book was printed with numerous errors throughout, including on the very visible back cover. Numerous other reviews describe hassles in dealing with the publisher, receiving zero in royalties, and battles over copyright.

Because of the conflicting information regarding royalties, the difficult-to-use-website, and the numerous author complaints we discovered, we strongly suggest that you use a more reputable service for self-publishing your work.

To help you find the Best Self Publishers, TopConsumerReviews.com provides you with an in-depth comparison of Virtual Bookworm and Breezeway Books.

Publishing a book used to be an expensive chore both in terms of time and money. You had to submit your work to a major publishing house, hope that it was accepted by their editors and review boards, and pay exorbitant publishing fees. After all that, there were extensive marketing and distribution methods and fees - all of which conspired to force many would-be authors to abandon their craft.

Thankfully, times have changed. Today, anyone can have their work professionally printed, marketed, and distributed through a variety of self-publishing services.

Self publishing companies create books for thousands of authors every year thanks to advancements in computer technology and a concept called Print-On-Demand (POD) publishing. This concept allows for books to be quickly printed and shipped as they are ordered, which eliminates the need for large upfront costs and storage.

However, not all self publishing companies are created equal. There are a wide range of services that are (or are not) offered by these companies, including professional editing services, custom graphic work, book cover options, personalized photos, marketing methods, distribution services, fees, and perhaps most importantly, royalties paid to you, the author.

There are a number of self publishing companies that exist today. They all have different fee structures and specific services that they can provide. You should consider important aspects of each self publishing company before you decide to choose one. Some of these aspects include:

Cost and Fees. What is the cost to self-publish your book? Will they keep a percentage of each future sale?

Included services. Does the company provide a wide range of self-publishing services for one set fee, or do they provide a list of services that you can choose from?

Turn-around time. How fast can the self-publishing company produce your book?

TopConsumerReviews.com has reviewed and ranked the best self publishing companies available today. We hope this information helps you start your publishing career right away!

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